Romance Publishing Giant Offering Ebooks Without DRM; Reporter Upset By This
from the how-dare-you-give-customers-what-they-want dept
Kevin Cummings writes in with the news that romance novel publishing giant Harlequin is setting up a new ebook division to offer digital books directly from the company's own websites, as well as via various online retailers. That, by itself, isn't a huge surprise these days, but the article does note that the publisher decided to go without DRM on the books. Now, that seems like a smart, consumer-friendly move that should be applauded. However, the reporter who covered the announcement claims this move is "troubling," which seems like an odd statement. How could treating customers with respect be "troubling"?Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Harlequin Always Innovating
Perhaps the reporter thinks it's troubling because it's not what everyone else is doing. There never really used to be a romance novel market before Harlequin. Would this reporter have considered it troubling that some company was publishing "racy" content back when Harlequin first appeared?
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is troubling. What an ID10T!
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Puff... it's gone
The link you've posted is already gone. There is a new one, but, unsurprisingly, the part with the "troubling" is not there anymore. Also, it seems that Google didn't get to index the original page, so there's no Google cached version either.
Looks like someone wants their reporter's mess swept right under the carpet.
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Re: Puff... it's gone
(troubling) http://www.examiner.com/x-12973-Long-Island-Books-Examiner~y2009m11d9-Harlequin-announces-new-digita l-only-Carina-Press
http://www.examiner.com/x-4981-Romance-Novel-Examiner~y2009m11d10-Harlequin -creates-digitalonly-publisher-Carina-Press
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Link is wrong
I think this is the right URL:
http://www.examiner.com/x-12973-Long-Island-Books-Examiner~y2009m11d9-Harlequin-announces-new- digital-only-Carina-Press
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Re: Link is wrong
http://www.examiner.com/x-4981-Romance-Novel-Examiner~y2009m11d10-Harlequin-creates-digitalo nly-publisher-Carina-Press
I thought the newspaper industry was struggling? Why then put two different reporters on the same story for the same newspaper?
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Re: Re: Link is wrong
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Re: Re: Link is wrong
what they do is you "try out" to write for a column that is "local" to you and for a specific field of science/art. you get paid based on the page views of your article. the problem with this is that most local areas dont have enough going on in any specific field of science/art for people to write articles regularly, so writers stretch beyond that... a lot, and many times, people write on the same events.
lots of people who have written for examiner complain about the "newspaper" not paying what they advertise. somewhere in the fine print, they basically say your articles must meet some ridiculously high threshold before you get paid a decent rate, which you'll never meet from people just wandering into the article from the "newspaper's" site. this means you have to do promotion for your own article too. and if that's the case, why not just put it on your own blog and get 100% of the ad income?
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Re: Link is wrong
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29 to go
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The reporter is also a lawyer and novelist
"Lauren J. Walter is a writer, novelist and lawyer. She’s a lawyer by day, writer by night. She’s actively seeking publication."
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Re: The reporter is also a lawyer and novelist
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any time something new and scary comes along its troubling. like that big bad technologies stuff... and computers OMG those are the most troubling of all.
ya know, if we just got rid of computers we wouldnt have to worry about all this crazy DRM stuff...
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Isn't there a saying that business would be great without the customers? I think i heard and RIAA exec say that at some point.
(sarcasm)
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"Those submitting to Carina Press should be aware that no advances are being offered and more troubling, there will be no DRM protection."
A publisher that does not - by policy - pay advances is always bad news for authors and thus, troubling.
Additonally, this particular reporter seems to share the misguided idea that DRM is meant to protect the interests (and profits) of authors rather than the publishers'/distributors', which is silly but hardly uncommon.
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Re:
While the no-DRM policy is certainly good news for consumers, it sounds like the eBook arm of Harlequin (Carina Press) will be separate from the main publisher and use a separate pool of (mostly unknown) authors. Kinda like the big record companies that set up 'indy' labels on the side; always a good strategy to keep your eggs in more than one basket.
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Re:
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Comment are unwelcome
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The key is the examiner as business model
Its a regional blog that tries to look like news.
Look at the 'Glen Beck may have raped a woman' event. At least 5 examiner pieces on that. From all over the nation. While the event was worthy of analysis - go read the various pieces - at least 2 were no better than blog comments.
As a way to sell ads/eyeballs wrapped up in a package of 'its citizen journalism' - wish I'd thought of it.
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This blog is worthless...
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Lack of advances is troubling...
In any event, here's my reply to the lady:
Geoffrey Kidd says:
DRM translates to "You don't OWN the things you've bought." Period.
My favorite publisher, Baen Books, started selling DRM-free books from their website(webscriptions.net) back in late 1999. Their prices have always been reasonable, and the loyalty of their customers is unshakable.
If Carina and Harlequin go down that road, they'll find the same results for the same reasons. Forcing people to jailbreak what they've bought just so that they can choose HOW, WHEN, and WHERE to read what they've paid for is very poor marketing practice.
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RWA
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